


Vaccinator 3000

by SilverEclipse119



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, It's 10pm do you know where your children are?, Needles, Sniper is hardly even in this to be honest, The parents of Teufort sure don't!, Vaccines, anti-vaxxers - Freeform, but this is Medic we're talking about so.., child endangerment, not to bad though imo, they're doing their best to make this as safe as possible, this is mostly based off the comics, unlawful practice of medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverEclipse119/pseuds/SilverEclipse119
Summary: The children of Teufort are sneaking out for shots, but not the kind you might expect...
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Vaccinator 3000

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: Do Not Try This at Home!** This is a story written for the sake of 'comedy' and like most fiction should not be attempted in real life! Please _only_ acquire your vaccination though legal means!
> 
> **Warnings:**
> 
>   * Unlawful practice of medicine
>   * A bit of child endangerment
>   * Needles
>   * Mentions of anti-vaxxers
> 

> 
> Let me know if you think I missed a warning!
> 
> **Note:** This fic features an Original Character as it's protagonist, so if that's not your thing feel free to skip. No hard feelings!
> 
> All of that finally being said, I hope you enjoy!

Michael took a deep breath as he approached the door. 

This looked like the right place. Everything was as the card he was holding said it would be. 

He scanned it once more, just to be safe. The cardstock was starting to get soft from passing through so many hands. The words in the red pen ink were almost as decipherable as chicken scratch, and many of them were so horribly misspelled that Michael almost believed they had been written by a barely literate chicken. 

“Go out of town on the north side. Follow the road until you see a dirt road carved out by van tracks. Follow that road until you hit a big chain link fence. Go to the _wood_ building, not the stone one. Knock on the door. A man will let you in. Bring a dollar.” He read under his breath for what might have been the hundredth time. He patted his pocket to feel for the bulge of the rolled-up dollar bill, once again relieved to find he hadn't lost it on his journey. 

The building looked exactly like his little sister had described it. It was a massive wooden fort coated in a thin layer of desert dust. There were a few spots of flaking red paint, as if someone had set out to paint the building but gave up a few minutes later. 

He had known this place was out here for a while. All the children in Teufort had a vague knowledge about the forts, mostly due to their parents' repeated warnings about never getting too close. Save for a few daring teens, the kids had dutifully respected their warnings up until a few days ago. 

That had been when a 19-year-old had stumbled back into town after walking too close to the forts on his birthday a few days prior. (Some people assumed he had been tipsy, but no one had outright said anything about that, because he wasn't of legal drinking age.) 

He had come back with reports of some strange men who apparently lived out there. One man in particular was of interest to the children of Teufort, a man with an unknown accent who apparently was some sort of doctor. It was the birthday boy's 15-year old brother who had set out to test the authenticity of his story. It was _that_ brother who came back with the cards. 

Michael flicked the card absently between his fingers as he mentally prepared himself to knock. These very cards had been wreaking havoc on Teufort’s children’s candy economy. He had paid his sister two months' worth of jolly ranchers for the one he had now, and was unbelievably relieved she hadn't scammed him this time. With any luck, he could resell this card for a bucket of chocolate bars before every kid in town made it out here. As soon as _that_ happened, the cards would be worthless. 

He reached out his fist and lightly tapped on the metal plated door. It creaked open slowly on rusty hinges that echoed across the darkened desert. Michael suddenly felt very small and very alone. 

He looked up, his jaw dropping as he gazed into the eyes of the largest man he had ever seen. 

The giant peered down at him, his heavy brow furrowed, and mouth bent in a resigned frown. He let out a grumbling hum that was so deep it could clear birds off a mountain. 

He reached out a partially gloved hand and gestured towards the doorway behind him. Michael gulped as he flexed his own hand at his side. He figured that, palm to middle fingertip, this man’s hand was the length of three of his. 

The giant let out a sigh. “Are you coming in or no?” 

Michael nodded quickly and scooted past him into the building. He looked around the dark hallway, balking at the number of offshoots. His instructions ended here. Where was he supposed to go next? 

The door clanked shut behind him with the scrape of metal on metal. The large man turned around to lean on the closed door. He pointed down the hallway at one of the entrances. 

“Go through hall on left. Take third right. Do _not_ go anywhere else. Do _not_ make Heavy come after you.” 

Michael swallowed his nervousness once again. “Thank you.” he squeaked. 

“Mmm.” The giant, _Heavy_ was what he was called apparently, closed his eyes. 

Michael scurried off down the hall Heavy had pointed at. He was grateful when he saw that someone had hung a poster from the ceiling that said, in bright red marker: ‘This Way’, followed by an arrow pointing down one of the halls. He didn’t want to make a wrong turn, not with the threat of the giant man having to track him down if he went astray. 

At the end of that hall was a door. There was a much less physically intimidating man leaning against it. He was tall, but unlike the last guy he was not built like a cinderblock wall. Still, the way his cap was pulled over his eyes put Michael on edge. 

The man looked up as Michael approached. He flicked his cap up into place so that the kid could see his eyes. “Did ya bring it?” 

“Um…” Michael floundered. “Bring… it…? 

“A dollar kid, did ya bring one?” 

“Oh!” Michael patted his pocket, sliding the bill out of the denim of his jeans. “Yeah, here!” 

The man took it, sliding it into his own pocket with a sharp buck toothed grin. “Sweet.” He pushed the door behind him open. “Here you go kid. Enjoy or whatever.” 

Michael stepped through the door. 

\--- 

Engineer watched as the most recent addition tentatively peaked into the waiting room. Like most of the others, he seemed surprised that there was technically a line. He glanced over at the other kids who were all amusing themselves with various tasks while they waited, waving at one who he seemed to recognize. 

“Over here, son.” Engineer beckoned him, tapping on the machine that he was leaning against. The boy approached. He pointed at a slot built into the device as he cranked the handle on the side. “Take a number, and then make yourself at home. Medic should see you in a couple hours.” 

“A couple hours?” the boy asked, his voice high with shock. 

“Hey, count yourself lucky!” Engineer laughed. “Earlier tonight the wait was five hours!” 

The boy nodded and took a number, going to join the other kid that had waved at him. 

Engineer sipped from a cup of coffee as he continued to watch the room. If you had told him back when he took this mercenary job that he would have to stay awake all night keeping watch of a room full of children in the middle of a war zone… well… he probably would have asked you what kind of shady business you were running and reported you to the proper authorities. Hell though, if you had told him he was going to be doing that _earlier today_ he would have at least laughed you out of the room. 

It had started with that one man, the one that Medic had snatched a few days prior. He had a habit of doing that, picking people off the street. The other mercs had stopped worrying about it when it became clear that he wasn’t going to kill any of them. 

Engineer still remembered that night, when Medic had stormed into the kitchen after releasing the man back into the wild. He had huffed around the room as he had assembled a coffee for himself, muttering things like: “I can’t believe it!” and “The nerve of some people!”. 

It had been Heavy who had finally asked him what was wrong. 

“Anti-vaxxers!” Medic had screamed back. “In Tuefort! Those lead poisoned idiots are anti-vaxxers! The whole lot of them! That guy I just had in here? 19 years old and completely unvaccinated! I couldn’t operate on him in that condition!” 

“What did you do then?” Engineer had asked. 

“What do you think? I vaccinated him of course!” 

Engineer and the others hadn't thought much more of it, until that kid had shown up the next day. The brother of Medic’s previous ‘patient’ apparently. It had turned out that the kids of Tuefort had done a lot more research than their parents, and the kid demanded vaccination as well. Medic had been beside himself with joy. None of the other mercenaries even tried to tell him that he wasn’t supposed to vaccinate the kid without parental consent. It’s not like he would have listened anyway. What did he have to lose? His medical license? 

That was the night that Scout had come up with his hairbrained money making scheme. He had written out a small pile of direction cards and given them to the boy before he left. Step two: profit. 

As soon as it had become obvious that Scout was going to get involved, the others had each taken a final swig of their respective drinks and had reluctantly stepped up to get involved too. They weren’t taking any chances. 

Engineer thumbed the lighter in his pocket as he watched Pyro continue to laugh and regale a small circle of children with indecipherable stories. The kids were barely listening as they colored pictures from a book Pyro had produced. Engineer had confiscated the lighter the minute it had come out, much to Pyro’s temporary disappointment. He was fairly distracted now, thankfully, as he took an orange crayon and continued to build flames onto the house on the coloring sheet. 

He was laying on his belly on the floor, and there was a kid on his back: an adorable freckle faced, orange haired, and notably androgynous child. They were the one encouraging Pyro to continue adding flames; not that the encouragement was needed, but it was delightfully accepted nonetheless. They giggled and kneaded their palms into Pyro’s suit as Pyro began to draw yet another spike in the cartoon house fire. 

Demoman was busy showing off one of his less haunted swords to some of the older kids. He was very responsible about letting them hold it, continuously reminding them that the sharp end was very deadly. There was a girl with a dark purple band tied around her long hair that kept coming back to hold it. She looked like she was getting very close to changing her aesthetic from hippie to vigilante. 

Engineer heard the tell-tale sound of a cloak dropping next to him. Spy leaned next to Engineer’s little set up. He pulled out his disguise kit and had a cigarette between his lips before he realized what he was doing. He plucked it out and slid it back in the kit under Engineer’s glare. 

“Sorry, force of habit.” 

Engineer nodded. “Did Lisa make it back safe?” 

“Yes.” 

Engineer was still thinking of her. The strange kid with the unexpected Texan accent who had hidden behind his legs from the other children. He had no idea why she had chosen to be an ankle weight for him specifically. She didn't say a word to him at first, just stared up at his goggled eyes with her own baby blues, round and unsure. The wide-eyed girl had waited three hours for her chance to get in, and she had almost cried when Medic's preliminary examination had found that it was unsafe to vaccinate her. Engineer had spent the better part of twenty minutes explaining the concept of herd immunity until she had stopped whimpering. 

He already found himself missing the girl. If he didn’t die before he could have kids, he hoped he would have a daughter like her. 

More than anything, he was grateful the kids of Teufort had more sense than their parents. She would be much safer once all the others were immunized. 

“Do you have any more of that?” Spy pointed at Engineer’s coffee. 

“Check the kitchen.” 

Spy sighed. “Later.” 

“Getting tired?” 

“I’ve only been back and forth to Teufort eight times tonight. How could I _possibly_ be getting tired?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I get it smarta- wise guy.” 

“Ohh, almost cursed in front of the children. Who’s the one with bad habits now, hum?” 

“Hush.” 

Spy turned back to watch the waiting room. “At least our unplanned, unassigned mission is so far casualty free.” 

“So long as Sniper keeps shooting the wild animals out there, and you and Soldier keep up the escorts, I think this will be an unqualified success.” 

Spy ran his gloved fingers down his eyelids. “Thank god Soldier’s got the next escort. I need a break.” 

“Well, there can’t be that many kids left in Teufort. Hopefully we’ll be done with this before tomorrow night.” 

The door to the waiting room popped open again, and Engineer watched yet another kid wander through. He beckoned her over to take a number, keeping his eye on Scout as he waved around his newest dollar bill. 

“You know, I’m not sure if that’s right. Scout charging the kids like this.” 

Spy shrugged. “Say what you will about it, but the boy _is_ buying us dinner tonight. That’s good enough for me.” 

Engineer raised his eyebrows. “Really? I didn’t know he was going to do that.” 

“Neither does he.” Spy smirked. He lifted the lapel of his suit, revealing an inside pocket that was stuffed with dollar bills. Engineer laughed so loud he momentarily drew the gaze of some of the children. 

\--- 

Michael had just gotten his turn to hold the sword when his friend’s number got called. He waved goodbye to the other boy as he went through one of the green medical bay doors. His friend shot him a thumbs up. 

“Keep your mind on that blade, boyo.” The man, who had introduced himself as Tavish, instructed. “It’s bound to take your head right off if you don’t keep at least one eye on it.” 

“Cool.” said the girl sitting nearby. She was experimenting with her purple headband. She seemed to be trying to tie the long piece of fabric into something a bit more warrior like. 

“Aye, let me give you a hand with that.” Tavish kept his eye sternly trained on Michael as he retied the headband. He managed to pull more of her hair into it and tie it so that the ends were shorter. “There you go. Stylish, and you won’t get tangled up while swinging a sword.” 

The girl admired her reflection in the glass of the cigarette machine. She mimed slashing a sword across it. “Nice.” 

Michael gave the sword back to Tavish. “Thanks.” 

“No problem. All right, who’s next?” 

Michael took a seat again. He leaned on his hand as he looked around for something else to do. He looked over at the circle of little kids with the guy in the weird suit. It looked like they were coloring. Michael rolled his eyes; he was too old for that. There was another circle of kids playing some sort of hand slapping game, but he wasn’t really into that either. 

His eyes were drawn to the side. There was a small table with a stack of magazines. He leafed through them, mostly uninterested, until his hand landed on an old comic book. 

He hadn't seen anything like it before. The title claimed it was an issue of _Saxton Hale’s Thrilling Tales_ , but Michael’s eyes were more drawn to the illustration of the man on the front who seemed to be punching the horns off of an ox. There was a spiky text bubble that advertised the reader could ‘ _Watch Saxton Hale fight a whole herd of oxen,_ _armed with only his arms!_ ’. 

He flipped open to the first page to see the same man riding a log down the white water of a river. A few panels later he was punching a crocodile while another bit his leg. A few _pages_ later he was fighting a whole herd of oxen, just like the cover had promised. 

Michael was enthralled. He had never seen a comic with _blood_ in it before! This was, hands down, the _coolest_ thing he had ever read. 

He barely took note when the girl with the headband was called in. He only looked up for a second when that red-haired kid shared a teary goodbye with the weird suit guy. (At least, he assumed it was teary. The kid was crying, but Michael couldn’t see the other guy’s face through his gas mask. He was making a lot of sad noises though.) 

An indeterminate amount of time passed as he flipped through the comic. He was finally interrupted when an orange gloved finger hooked the top of the book's spine and pulled it down, getting his attention. 

“‘Scuse me, son. Are you number 32?” The man with the Texan accent asked. Michael recognized him as the man who had greeted him when he came in. 

Michael slipped his number out of his pocket. It _was_ 32\. He looked up at the notice board, which looked like someone had recently revamped it so that it could work in double digits; the second number was hastily tacked on and was being held up with duct tape and a bungee cord. It also said 32. 

“The doc’s ready to see you.” The man smiled kindly, though Michael was still a bit unnerved that he couldn’t see the man’s eyes. 

Michael was about to put the comic back on the table, but the man put his hand in the way before he could. 

“Why don’t you keep it?” He offered. 

“Really?” Michael asked, his voice pitching up with excitement. 

“Yeah. You looked like you were enjoyin’ it.” He laughed and rubbed the back of his head, just below his helmet. “‘sides, none of us read it anyway. At most, Pyro’ll just use it for kindling someday.” 

“Thanks!” Michael rolled it up and stuffed it into his jean pocket as best as he could. He hopped up from the chair and headed toward the green double doors. 

“See ya, kid.” The man waved. 

“Bye!” Michael waved back. 

As he stepped through the doors, he noticed it was both much darker and colder than the waiting room. There was a man in a long coat who was humming as he arranged some medical tools. 

“Have a seat!” He called back, without even trying to look at who had just walked in. 

Michael jumped up onto the bed behind him. There was a roll of examination table paper stretched across it. 

“Do you have any other medical concerns or are you just here for the vaccination?” The man, who Michael assumed had to be the Medic, asked. He still didn’t turn around. 

“Uh, nope. The vaccine thingy.” Michael confirmed. 

“All right.” Medic almost sounded disappointed. “I’m going to need to ask some questions and do a preliminary exam and scan.” 

“Scan?” Michael jumped as Medic suddenly whipped around, a ramshackle machine in his hand. He hit a button on it and a green beam began to crawl up Michael’s body. It was a little warm. 

Medic asked Michael about his medical history, and he answered to the best of his ability. He did a few routine checkup procedures, most of which Michael was familiar with. He listened to his heartbeat and lungs, tapped a hammer to his joints, and checked his ears and throat with a few different lights. He even inspected Michael’s eyes and teeth, which the boy had not expected. The whole thing took around 15 minutes. 

The scanning machine beeped and spat out a paper. Medic snatched it out of the air as it fluttered down. 

“Ah, excellent! You are fully able to receive immunization!” 

Medic walked over to the side of a nearby counter. He pulled out a large device with an alarmingly big needle on the end of it. 

“What is that?” Michael asked, suddenly feeling a bit faint. 

“I call it the Vaccinator 3000! My own genius invention of course! I’d just call it the Vaccinator, but I already made a device with that name for out on the field, and it’s quite different from this one considering it’s supposed to be used to heal gunshot wounds and stabs and-” Medic cut off his gleeful ramblings when he saw the boy’s wide eyes. “Ahem, not important, back to the point. This is built to give you all of those missing vaccines all at once!” 

He pulled on the handle on the top. It hummed to life, the point of the device lighting up with a red glow. 

“Is that safe?” Michael edged away from the doctor just a bit as he pulled up his sleeve. 

“Sure!” Medic shrugged. “I mean, probably.” 

The machine edged closer. Michael braced himself. 

“This might pinch.” Medic warned. 

Michael squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a stab of pain in his shoulder. He swore he could hear the doctor laughing. 

And then it was over. 

The pain dissipated, along with the hum of the machine. 

Michael opened his eyes. He glanced at his shoulder. There wasn’t even a wound left, just a drop of blood that Medic caught with a tissue. 

“And there you go! You're a good patient! If you ever want to donate some of your liver or intestines to science, you know where to find me!” Medic grinned, which was much more unnerving than the doctor probably realized. Michael didn't know if he was supposed to laugh or not. It didn't seem like the Medic was joking. 

Medic turned away and began sanitizing his tools again. “Just a few things before you go...” 

Michael pulled his sleeve back down. “Yeah?” 

“You’ll probably feel a bit achy in a few hours, but that’s just your body getting used to the vaccine. It’ll go away in about a day. Also, you’ll probably still need a few boosters for those someday, but probably not before you’re 18 so you should be fine when that time comes. Also also, we’ve got some connections to the government, so your health records will be updated sometime in the next few days. Also also _also_ ,” He handed a bottle of water back to Michael without turning around. The bottle was made of thick red plastic and had some sort of filter in it. “Try your best not to consume any water around here within about a 50-mile radius. If you have no other choice, at least run it through this first.” 

Michael accepted the bottle. “Okay.” 

Medic pointed towards another door at the back of the med bay. “Exit’s over there.” 

“Thanks.” 

Michael stepped outside through the back door. He noticed the air wasn’t as crisp as it had been when he arrived. Dawn was just starting to peak over the desert, painting the sandy horizon with a smidge of light blue. 

“All right, maggots!” Michael jumped as a loud voice boomed right near his ear. A man, dressed in the same red as the rest of the other people inside but in what was much more clearly a uniform, stood stiffly in front of a group of other children. “We now have the mandatory amount of you tin toys to march back to Teufort. And if any of you fall behind, I will be forced to carry you and it will be humiliating for _you!_ I’m looking at you, bowl cut.” 

“Affirmative, Sir!” A little kid said through a mouth of missing teeth as he stood tall and saluted. 

“Good man!” The soldier nodded approvingly. 

Sword girl rolled her eyes as she turned toward Michael. “He’s been like this for the past hour. Consider yourself lucky you missed it, kid.” 

“I like him!” It was the red-haired kid again, the one that had been hanging out with the suit guy. “He has a rocket launcher, and he _jumps_ with it!” 

A hush fell over the kids when a deep growl broke through their chatter. The group turned to look for the source of the sound, a few of them screaming when their eyes fell on a large, furry mass approaching. 

The wolf stalked closer, its mouth foaming. The children backed up and scrambled over each other to get as far away as possible. Michael watched with terror and awe as sword girl stepped up, her headband blowing majestically in the breeze. 

There was a muffled gunshot, and the rabid wolf dropped dead. 

“Thanks soldier!” The man, who had watched everything unfold rather nonchalantly, barked up towards the roof. 

“No worries!” Someone called back. Michael could see a hand waving over the top of a sniper rifle. Whoever was up there would have a clean view of the entire town facing side of the fort. 

“All right, tin soldiers! Let me just add this wolf to the animal pile and we’ll be on our way!” 

“Damn.” the girl with the headband grumbled. “If only I’d had a sword. I would have been so cool.” 

\--- 

Michael rolled over in his bed, trying to get a little sleep before the day started. Medic wasn’t kidding when he said he’d feel achy, though Michael didn’t know if he could blame it all on the vaccines or if the run home had played a part in it. He had done all right, mostly thanks to the water Medic had given him. At least he didn’t end up needing to be carried. The boy with the bowl cut had. So had the red-haired kid, but Michael suspected _they_ were faking it due to the fact that they had winked at him while slumped over the soldier’s shoulder. 

The sword girl had said that she wanted to learn how to run even farther. Michael suspected he’d be hearing more about her from the town gossipers, especially if she did eventually get her hands on a real blade. 

Still, as he rolled around and tried to relax his sore joints, he couldn’t help the grin that pulled at his lips. All those years of _actually reading_ those library books before tossing them into the continuous fire had finally paid off. All that was left now, was to see what the crash of the value of the direction cards would do to their candy economy. 

And, of course, figure out what to do when some of the babies of Teufort were old enough to make the trip out to the fort, but that would be a problem for another time. Hopefully that Medic would still be there. 

Michael finally rolled into a comfortable position. He could feel the shape of the comic tucked into a sliced hole in his mattress. He could hardly wait to read it again. His eyes drifted closed just as the sun peeked over the horizon, bathing his room in orange light. 

Soon, it would be another hot day in Teufort. Soon Teufort’s kids would meet together once again and swap incredible stories. 

And soon, when their parents complained about the supposed danger of vaccines to each other over dinner, or coffee, or the vegetables at the local market: their kids would lock eyes as they spoke, and smile at their own shared secret. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is... something. I got into tf2 for a little while and this was made somewhere along the way. I did a little bit of digging into the history of anti-vaccine movements to see if this fic was even plausible and it turns out there's been anti-vaccine movements every two decades or so basically since the 1800s, so... yeah. They probably weren't called anti-vaxxers back then though but... eh. Also, I just stole the OC's names off of a list of the most popular children's names at the time.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed. Vaccinate your kids.


End file.
